Photographic exhibits

These images provide outstanding visual documentation of
hospital design, hospital equipment, patient care, operating room procedure,
and life on and off the wards over the last four decades of the 19th century
- a period when the American public's perception of the hospital changed
from a place where persons with contagious diseases were isolated or the
poor were to sent die, to a place where persons of all classes could take
advantage of the most recent developments in surgical technique, laboratory
diagnosis, and scientifically based medical care.

This unique collection is stored in "UR
Research," a service of the University of Rochester Libraries.
The UR Research system was built using DSpace, a software platform jointly
developed by Hewlett-Packard Company and MIT. The University of Rochester
Libraries use UR Research as a long-term storage system for digital works;
it is a digital repository designed to capture, store, index, distribute,
and preserve the intellectual output of a university’s faculty in
digital formats.

The present online exhibit displays images of nurses photographed
over a period of seventy-five years. They depict nurses at work under
war-time conditions, nurses in the wards 19th-century New York hospitals,
student nurses in training situations, images of young women in casual
moments before the camera, etc.

All these images are from the photographic collection of
the Rare Books & Manuscripts section of the Edward G. Miner Library.
Each is an important historical document that informs the nursing historian,
the military historian, the historian of hospital care, etc. many things
about their field. These images have other layers. Each has an inherent
aesthetic component that makes them objects of photographic art; and most
have a compelling human interest that both enhances and transcends their
historical context.

These images represent but a small portion of the Miner
Library's photographic collection pertaining to nursing and related subjects.
This exhibit is for us a pilot project, aiding us to determine the requirements
of an image database that would eventually encompass the whole of our
photographic collection. At the same time, it makes a small selection
of these interesting images available to a much broader public than was
previously possible.

Photographic copies of these images may be ordered at cost.
For uses other than private study, research, or teaching (that is, commercial,
publication, broadcast, and anything else that doesn't fall under fair
use, we require that you contact the Rare Books & Manuscripts
Librarian, Christopher
Hoolihan (585-275-2979), in advance for permission to reproduce and
the appropriate acknowledgment.

It is the responsibility of anyone using the site, or ordering
reproductions, to ensure that the use of this material is in compliance
with the U.S. Copyright law. For more information on copyright contact
the U.S. Copyright Office
at 202-707-5959 . All of the images are watermarked. The watermark permits
viewing of images without obscuring large areas.